Brumbies shock Bulls and reach Super Rugby final

The Brumbies pulled of one of the shocks of the season when they beat the Bulls 23-26 in Pretoria to book a place in the Super Rugby final against the Chiefs.

The Brumbies will now fly home to Canberra and then on to Hamilton where they will meet the Chiefs at Waikato stadium next Saturday. The Chiefs and Brumbies have not played each other yet this year.

A late try by Brumbies winger Tevita Kuridrani put the visitors into the lead
with two minutes left on the clock.

The Bulls have themselves to blame for the loss as they turned down several very kickable penalties and went for touch instead of taking the points. Every time the Bulls went for touch they failed to come away with points.

The decisions by captain Dewald Potgieter meant that the Bulls only scored three points in the final quarter which kept the Brumbies within touching distance.

The first 10 minutes belonged to the Brumbies as they put 10 points on the
board in this period to leave the Bulls reeling.

The Australians fired the opening salvo as inside centre Christian Leali'ifano
kicked a penalty three minutes into the match.

The visitors further showed their intent to dominate the set phases as they
out-muscled the Bulls in the first scrum of the match in the fifth minute, enforcing
a penalty from a kickable position.

Leali'ifano pulled his penalty attempt to the right that would have given his
team a psychological six-point lead early in the match.

The missed opportunity, however, came at a small price as they found their
way over the whitewash three minutes later to score the first try of the evening.

Danger man Henry Speight lived up to his reputation as playmaker and showed
up the Bulls' defence.

When he was finally chased down, he managed to offload to fullback Jesse Mogg
to score the try, with Leali'ifano converting, to extend their lead to 10 points.

The early lead silenced the home crowd and the Bulls without the roar of their
home crowd looked fatigued and subdued.

The Bulls' plight was further complicated with Steyn missing his first attempt
at goal in the 14th minute.

Two minutes later however the Bulls reduced the deficit when outside centre
JJ Engelbrecht powered his way over the tryline, with Steyn's attempt going
wide of the posts.

The Bulls flyhalf finally found the target in the 22nd minute to bring his
side within two points of the Brumbies.

However, the visitors pulled back another three points as Leali'ifano kicked
another penalty before the Bulls responded with three points of their own 10
minutes from the half-time break.

Leali'ifano had the final say in the first half and the visiting Brumbies held
a five-point lead going into the break.

The Bulls started the second period with great intent and came close to scoring
shortly after the kickoff with Grant Hattingh being held up over the line.

Steyn, however, kicked three points through a penalty to again get his side
within two points of the Brumbies.

The Bulls flyhalf and Leali'ifano continued to exchange kicking duties two
more times until the hosts took the lead for the first time in the match in
the 51st minute when Steyn landed his sixth penalty of the game.

Once the Bulls had got into the lead the Bulls appeared to lose their way as
even though the Bulls had the tournament's leading point scorer Morne Steyn
captain Dewald Potgieter opted to go for the sideline rather than going for
the points on three occasions.

All three times the Bulls failed in their attempt to score from the lineout
and it ultimately backfired for the Pretoria side.

Speaking after the match Potgieter tried to justify his decisions by saying, "We tried to have an attacking mindset at that point."

"Not always a popular choice but you have to back what you want to do and the guys were in the same mindset," said the Bulls captain.

Potgieter's decisions came back to haunt him as Brumbies outside centre Tevita
Kuridrani crossed the whitewash to silence the Loftus faithful, with Leali'ifano
ended the scoring with a conversion.

The Brumbies will now contest their first final in nine years next week in
Hamilton while the Bulls season is over.